Hi everyone, I accidentally posted this in the marketing forum, when I should have posted it here - if a mod could please delete the first one, that would be greatly appreciated. We have been running a marketing company (predominately search engine marketing, but have also run offline campaigns when requested). We have recently looked into charging commission only for clients (especially ones selling high-ticket products), simply because we get results and generate business for companies that they previously had not been getting. We also have enough flat fee clients that are ongoing to sustain us while we set new campaigns up for commission agreements. I know some agencies use this method as well, so I guess my questions are for anyone that has either run this model themselves, or used an agency that has worked on commission only (plus media costs). First of all, what agreements did you have for tracking leads to sales - we prefer to mainly deal with bricks and mortar business for a number of reasons, but this means that the sales process for these businesses often involved taking leads coming in from the web and following up over the phone etc before closing a sale. Similarly, what options are there for tracking phone calls from the site, we have been looking at setting up separate voip lines that only get advertised on the web site that we're promoting, so we can track calls an even follow up with some sort of audit process if necessary. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Dan
Hi Dan, The advice I've heard from people who do this type of thing is that you need to do a "gut check" before you consider a JV like this with any company. If you're asking for a percentage of the sales you help them generate, you need to first of all be able to trust that they'll pay you. If you don't think you can trust them at the beginning, it may be better to stay away from the client. That's what I've heard. Hope this helps a bit.
Dan, The way I work with Brick and Mortar client is - instead of sales, we charge them on lead basis. That is say our client is a dentist - Instead of them paying on per sale, we charge them X amount for each enquiry. Most of the Brick and Mortar customers are smart enough to estimate the exact number for each enquiry. Tracking lead is very easy - Most of the times, we route the call through our number - Accept the lead at our web-site - Build the form at client's website to capture the lead.
per lead is the way to go just make sure your trackin software or whatever you will use is up to par.
If you plan on taking a percentage of the profits you could just as easily say something to this effect "any money that comes through our marketing efforts will be processed by us and we will cut you the check for the difference." See how that person or company reacts to that.
Dan, I would look into an 800 number that is only used by you for your online promoting. You can have the phone number rollover to the regular business line. Then to find out how effective you are you can use the 800 number phone statements to identify the calls that came through your efforts. You might also use a "coupon code" or something that the customer will give to the business that will identify them as one of your leads. Hope this helps!
You'd better ask some consultant to have a check about your business and only by this will get what you want. Alternatively, rely on yourself to find where the problem lies in.
If you are working to get paid only on the basis of commissions I think you need to trust your instinct about whther the business is profitable enough to generate sufficient revenues to sustain you that way.